For years, “de minimis” was the quiet engine behind ultra-cheap cross-border shopping. A huge share of low-value parcels entered the United States under the de minimis rule in U.S. trade law, which generally allowed shipments valued at $800 or less to clear with minimal friction and, crucially, without normal duty collection. That system is not coming back—at least not in the near term.
In late February 2026, the White House reaffirmed that the duty-free de minimis exemption under 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(C) “shall not apply” to shipments not covered by a narrow statutory exception, “regardless of value, country of origin, mode of transportation, or method of entry.”
The practical consequence is that shipments that previously would have slipped through as de minimis now need to be treated like real imports in the system. CBP’s February 23 Cargo Systems Messaging Service notice made it plain: goods entering the United States “remain ineligible” for de minimis treatment, and shipments that would have qualified prior to the suspension must be filed under an appropriate entry type in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
The second big change is what happens to international postal shipments, which matter because a meaningful portion of marketplace parcels move through postal channels. The Federal Register publication of the February 20, 2026 executive order lays out a transitional model: carriers (or other CBP-qualified parties) must collect and remit duties, and the duty rate assessed on each dutiable postal item is tied to the separate temporary import surcharge proclamation issued the same day. In other words, even when the product value is small, the shipment is no longer assumed “too small to tax.”
So what does that mean for Temu, Shein, and AliExpress-style direct-to-consumer shipping? It changes the economics and the operations at the same time. When duty-free de minimis is off the table, a low-value parcel can trigger duty collection, more structured data requirements, and more points in the chain where delays and handling fees can appear. Platforms can respond by collecting duties earlier in the checkout flow, shifting fulfillment into domestic warehouses, consolidating shipments into bulk importation, or limiting certain product categories—none of which is costless.
It also shifts leverage in the supply chain. A direct-ship model is simplest when the border is “light-touch.” When the border becomes “entry-first,” the advantage often moves toward sellers who can run compliant import programs at scale, manage customs data cleanly, and optimize landed cost across entire product lines rather than per parcel.
Ryan Stallard, an International Business Development Consultant, frames it as a structural reset, not a temporary headache. “De minimis acted like invisible grease for cross-border e-commerce—fast, cheap, and easy,” Stallard says. “When you remove it, winners are the companies that already know how to run proper import compliance and can redesign their fulfillment model instead of just raising prices.”.
The bottom line is that the de minimis era was never only about tariffs—it was about speed and simplicity. With the exemption still suspended and CBP directing shipments into standard entry pathways, low-value e-commerce is likely to look more like traditional importing: more documentation, more predictability for enforcement, and higher all-in costs that will eventually show up either in consumer pricing, delivery timelines, or both.